[Khamp]

So I have been brewing on my Grainfather for a while now and love the system, but am left stumped on what to do about my Brewhouse efficiency. When I was doing a regular pot and cooler method I was in the mid 70% but now with the recirculating mash I am in the mid 80's. I will get a recipe that ois designed to finish at an OG of 1.050 and hit a 1.070. I think I know the answer, that is to lower the amount of base malt used but left wondering will that effect the overall flavor and mouthfeel of the beer leaving it watery and lacking character. What is the best way to address this? As I don't always want to have super high gravity brews and make it easier to predict my yeast pitch.
Thanks!!!

[allenhuerta]

What brewing software, if any, are you using? In Brewfather I can input the recipe as is, input my efficiency, and scale it to my desired OG.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[denny]

First, always use the GF app.  I have found I get better resultswith it than anything else.  Next, if you scale back a recipe, I prefer to scale all malts, not just base malt, so you retain the proper % of each malt.  You won't end up with a thin beer because your efficiency has increased so you get more out of a lesser amount of grain.
 

[BrewBama]

I agree with Denny that you could simply input the % efficiency into the software to get a recipe that uses less grain.

However, if you feel there’s a correlation between qty of grain and viscosity, maybe open your mill gap a bit to use the same amount of grain but with less efficiency. I personally like ~75% BH efficiency.

If you don’t use software, measure the gravity in the boiling pot and multiply the points by the number of gallons you collected. Then divide by the number of pounds of grain you used. The result should be somewhere around 30.

Often folks complain about not hitting a certain OG (coming up short) and the solution is often tighten the mill gap and/or add grain. In this case the complaint is the opposite so the solution is the opposite.

I use a JSP MaltMill and have placed some match marks on the case to show me where various settings are that leave crushed grain on top of a No14 sieve. With all else being equal (pH, type of grain, etc), the wider the gap = the more on top of the sieve = the less efficiency.  (Currently set to 60% on top/ 40% in the tray):




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Khamp]

Thanks Brewbama and Denny! Super helpful.  I get my local home brew shop to mill my grain but I’ll try scaling my malts and if that results in a lower character beer I’ll get a mill.

[Khamp]

What brewing software, if any, are you using? In Brewfather I can input the recipe as is, input my efficiency, and scale it to my desired OG.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

I use the standard Grainfather App and Website for my recipes. I gather from what you're saying is that brewfather is better.

[allenhuerta]

First, always use the GF app.  I have found I get better resultswith it than anything else.  Next, if you scale back a recipe, I prefer to scale all malts, not just base malt, so you retain the proper % of each malt.  You won't end up with a thin beer because your efficiency has increased so you get more out of a lesser amount of grain.

Honestly, I should have assumed you were using the GF app with the GF. I guess I had a lapse in thought lol I would do what Denny says in this case and work from there. But, either way, I'd scale the whole recipe, not just the base. Brewfather makes it easy. I'm sure the GF app has that feature as well, I just have 0 experience with it.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[denny]

What brewing software, if any, are you using? In Brewfather I can input the recipe as is, input my efficiency, and scale it to my desired OG.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

I use the standard Grainfather App and Website for my recipes. I gather from what you're saying is that brewfather is better.

Not in my estimation. I tried it for a while but didn't see that it offered anything over the GF app.

[Saccharomyces]

So I have been brewing on my Grainfather for a while now and love the system, but am left stumped on what to do about my Brewhouse efficiency. When I was doing a regular pot and cooler method I was in the mid 70% but now with the recirculating mash I am in the mid 80's. I will get a recipe that ois designed to finish at an OG of 1.050 and hit a 1.070.

I have never used brewhouse efficiency to determine my grain bill because it is not a direct calculation.  I have always used hot water extract (a.k.a. points per pound per gallon or points per kilogram per liter).  Hot water extract (HWE) is how potential extract is measured by British and many European maltsters.  For example, an extraction efficiency of 75% means that one is achieving 36 * 0.75 =  27 points per pound of grain.  The reason why I used 36 points per pound per gallon (PPG) as maximum HWE instead of 37 is because almost all grists contain a percentage of lower yielding malt than base malt. It simplifies having to perform a weighted sum. 

Anyway, one does not even need to know the efficiency of the original brewer to scale a grist.   All one needs to know is the O.G., the after boil volume, and the weight and percentages of malt in the grist in the original recipes along with and one's brew house average PPG (which is a running average of batch PPGs).  For example, if a recipe in question produces an end of boil (chilled) volume of 5.5 gallons at a gravity of 1.050 using 10 pounds of grain, then the PPG value for this batch is ((1.050 - 1) * 1000) * 5.5 / 10 = 27.5 points per pound per gallon.  Now, if our brew house has an average PPG value of 30 PPG, then we scale the grist weight by 27.5 / 30 = 0.92.  After that value has been calculated, scaling the recipe is as simple as multiplying the weights of each of the malted an non-malted cereal grains in the grist by 0.92.  It is that simple.  A recipe can be scaled on a paper napkin with a pencil.  I know that people love to using brewing software, but I find it to be of very little use because most brewing calculations can be done with pencil and paper or a calculator (plus, I brew to get away from software).  After a while, one knows how much grain one needs to hit an O.G. at a specific volume and then it just becomes a game of grist composition percentages.  Most recipes are fairly simple consisting of 90% base malt and 10% specialty malt(s) or 80% base malt and 20% specialty(s).  In practice, the base malt swamps out the specialty malts when PPG values are calculated, so batch-to-batch PPG values tend to converge on a sequence of values that differ usually by less than one gravity point.

[BrewBama]

The idea behind adopting common terms is the ability to establish an understanding between those communicating.  The term ‘brewhouse efficiency’ has entered the lexicon of a majority of home brewers whether we like it or not.

The system of points per pound per gallon can be found in Palmer’s How to Brew but for whatever reason it did not enter the common language of American home brewers. He describes it as a method to determine how efficient your extraction was. Sort of a sanity check or troubleshooting tool

From How to Brew Chap 18: “Measure the gravity in the boiling pot and multiply the points by the number of gallons you collected. Then divide by the number of pounds of grain you used. The result should be somewhere around 30. 27 is okay, 29 is good, and over 30 is great. If it is 25 or below, you are lautering too fast or you are not getting good conversion in the mash, which could be caused by having too coarse a grist, the wrong temperature, not enough time, it got cold, or a pH factor, et cetera.”


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk